Costco – Alamo $72.41 full-size (full-size and up are cheaper than the smaller models, perhaps a pricing error on the smaller models, this sometimes happens for Alamo, less so for Enterprise and rare for other agencies )

Hotwire – $107.62

For both trips, AutoSlash was cheapest but did not price any major rental agencies, which the others do not bother to price. Perhaps it is unfair bias without evidence, but The Rapid Traveler sticks with the major agencies. AutoSlash’s model is to work further on the rates post-booking, but it is hardly promising that none of the big guys are in the initial results.

Capital One bests Costco Travel in both searches, the tradeoff is fully flexible Costco bookings versus prepaid, one change only (refunds in equivalent miles, not cash) Capital One bookings.

Hotwire is higher than all, which is typical. In nearly two years of weekly rentals, The Rapid Traveler rarely found Hotwire to compete with Costco rates. Priceline Name Your Own Price rentals beat Costco about 50% of the time with daily perseverance starting 2-3 weeks out. Last minute deals on Priceline were rare for those rentals.

Capital One is indeed a great option to find low car rental prices. The rates are prepaid but can be changed/refunded once, though there is more room for problems than the non-prepaid Costco rentals. AutoSlash may turn out well in the end, but it takes a leap of faith to book and hope they find something better than Payless. Their goal is admirable but it is difficult to embrace something with low upfront transparency.

@Mike – good point, I have considered Sixt for some of my non-US travels, though I do not recall renting from them, in those cases finding better deals elsewhere.

Sixt has 5 locations in Florida and one in Atlanta, GA. The FLL and MCO locations are both off-airport, unlike the major agencies or in case of FLL, even E-Z and Payless are on-airport. Sixt does provide shuttle service.

I had two recent capital one car rentals, that i think were great deals, one was mid-march in Phoenix, which I booked late January. Most searches I was coming up either sold out or $300-$400 for our Thursday-Monday rental. So I tried capital one, just having gotten the venture card several months before, I was able to reserve a budget car, full size for $110 or 11,100 miles. In April I booked a car through capital one for a May trip 17-21 in Orange County, the total for the 4 days for a full size car was $71 or 710… Read more »

I had a reservation with Alamo. I tried the Cap1 site and the amount was $ 30.00 less !
I called Alamo to cancel and as a result I said I was getting lower rate somewhere else. They immediately
not only matched it but beat it by couple of dollars !

About Stefan

Stefan Krasowski has traveled to 189 countries and is an expert on international travel, frequent flyer programs, and travel credit cards. More About Stefan»

Rapid Travel Chai is a project of Travel Chai LLC.

This site is for entertainment purpose only. The owner of this site is not an investment adviser, financial planner, nor legal or tax professional and articles here are of an opinion and general nature and should not be relied upon for individual circumstances.

Advertiser Disclosure:The owner of this site has financial relationships with some of the merchants mentioned here and may be compensated if consumers choose to utilize the links located throughout the content on this site and generate sales for the said merchant.

Editorial Note: All content unless otherwise noted or quoted is the author’s own, and not provided or commissioned by any other entity. Opinions have not been reviewed, approved, endorsed, or edited by any other entity. Comments made in response to posts are not provided or commissioned nor have they been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. It is not the responsibility of any advertiser to ensure that questions are answered.